New Hampshire jobless rate improves, despite no more jobs

By John Nolan

jnolan@fosters.com

fosters.com

By John Nolan

jnolan@fosters.com

Posted Apr. 11, 2013 at 3:15 AM

By John Nolan

jnolan@fosters.com

Posted Apr. 11, 2013 at 3:15 AM

ROCHESTER — With its fourth major release of job statistics at the end of March, New Hampshire Employment Security is now back on its normal schedule, having completed its benchmarking of previous years’ figures.

The latest numbers give unadjusted unemployment rates for New Hampshire’s counties, cities and towns for February.

Between January and February, the state’s unadjusted jobless rate improved from 6.5 percent to 6.1 percent, even though there were slightly fewer people working — 694,610 in February compared to 694,770 in January. This is because over 3,000 people disappeared from the labor force over the month.

In February, the unadjusted jobless rate for the United States was 8.1 percent. In New England, Massachusetts posted 6.8 percent, Connecticut was at 8.4 and Maine at 8.2 percent, Rhode Island was at 9.8 percent, and Vermont recorded a jobless rate of 4.7 percent.

Now, with its state unadjusted jobless rate of 6.1 percent, New Hampshire is lying 14th, well below North Dakota (3.9), Nebraska (4.2), Vermont (4.7) South Dakota (4.9), and nine other (mainly Western) states. At the misery end of the unadjusted unemployment rate table, there is still one state in double digits — Illinois, with 10.5 percent.